A standard slicing machine has an input table that can be reciprocated longitudinally past a normally circular rotating blade to cut slices from a foodstuff, for instance a piece of meat or cheese, sitting on the input table. On the other side of the blade the slices are picked up by a conveyor, typically a fork-, belt-, or chain-type arrangement having a vertical support plate and provided with a multiplicity of sharp points so that the slices can be caught on the conveyor as they issue from the downstream side of the blade. A transfer fork has tines engaged between adjacent elements of the conveyor and can be pivoted to pull the slices off the conveyor and deposit them on an output table which is positioned horizontal underneath the downstream side of the blade. Thus as the input table is moved back and forth, slices are cut from the foodstuff thereon, these slices pass the blade and are picked up the conveyor, and the transfer fork deposits them in a stack on the output table. Such machines are described in detail in my earlier U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,185,527, 4,217,650, 4,338,836, 4,379,416, 4,586,409, 4,598,618, 4,763,738, and 4,867,257.
In order to separate the slices from each other, to separate groups of slices, and/or to form a package around the slices, it is known to insert underneath the stack, between the slices, and/or on top of the stack a sheet or foil. In one system a sheet is set on the conveyor before the stack is started so that the stack is formed atop this bottom sheet, then sheets are interposed between succeeding slices as they are deposited on the bottom sheet and on each other or are interposed after a certain number of slices corresponding to a standard portion has been deposited. A top sheet is deposited on top of the stack when the desired number of slices have been deposited.
The standard system for doing this has a supply, normally a roll, of the sheet material and a feeder that is typically a pair of pinch rollers that can be driven to pull the sheet material from the roll. The end of the roll is pushed by the rollers out onto a flat table and a cutter slices off the end. Then a separate manipulator normally having a plurality of suction grippers picks the sheet formed by the cut-off end and deposits it on the conveyor where the foodstuff slices are stacked.
While such a system is highly effective, it is quite complex. The device for paying out the sheet material and cutting it off is relatively simple, but the manipulator for picking up the cut-off sheet and depositing it in the stacking station is fairly complex. It has not only a relatively sophisticated articulated mechanism, but must be connected by suction lines to a pump and must be controlled by plural actuators.